Former San Francisco Giant Willie McCovey was on hand to present the Willie Mac Award to Giants pitcher Matt Cain before a game against the Chicago Cubs at AT&T Park on Friday, Sept. 25, 2009, in San Franciso, Calif. The award is given to the Giants player who best exemplifies the spirit and leadership shown by McCovey throughout his career. (Jane Tyska/Staff)

Former San Francisco Giants player Willie McCovey waves to the crowd while riding in a car during a baseball World Series parade in downtown San Francisco, Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2010. The Giants defeated the Texas Rangers in five games for their first championship since the team moved west from New York 52 years ago. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

San Francisco, CA July 30, 1959 – Willie McCovey, Giants first baseman named National League Rookie of the Year 1959, offers soda pop in the dressing room. (Leo Cohen / Oakland Tribune Staff Archives)

San Francisco Giants great Willie McCovey watches the proceedings as the Giants hand out the Willie Mac Award for 2010 to Andres Torres prior to a Major League Baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Friday, Oct. 1, 2010 at AT&T Park in San Francisco. (D. Ross Cameron/Staff)

John J. Kim-staff 9/28/99 ang sports
San Francisco Giants legend Willie McCovey (left) gives a press conference as the 1999 Willie Mac Award recepient Marvin Benard answers reporters’ questions Tuesday night at 3Com Park before the last home series opener of the season against the Dodgers.

San Francisco, CA May 2, 1970 – Willie McCovey, right, receives the Most Valuable Player National League Award. Standing with him are, from left, Willie Mays and National League President Chub Feeney. (By Prentice Brooks / Oakalnd Tribune)

San Francisco Giants legend Willie McCovey is among 50 of 60 living members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame who returned to Cooperstown, NY., on Sunday, July 25, 2004, to welcome new inductees Dennis Eckersley and Paul Molitor. Just over his shoulder is Willie Mays, another Giants legend. (Contra Costa Times/Cindi Christie)

Former San Francisco Giants’ MVP Willie McCovey waves to the crowd as fellow former MVP Willie Mays looks on as the Giants’ Buster Posey (28) is honored with the National League MVP award before the Giants hosted the Cardinals at AT&T Park in San Francisco Saturday, April 6, 2013. (Patrick Tehan/Staff)

Former San Francisco Giants’ Willie Mays, left, and Willie McCovey during a ceremony honoring Candlestick Park before the San Francisco Giants game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at AT&T Park in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, April 10, 2014. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)

Click here if you are having trouble viewing this gallery on a mobile device.

Willie McCovey, the Giants first baseman who terrorized pitchers with his majestic home runs and charmed fans with his easy grace, died Wednesday. He was 80.

One of the most beloved Giants of all-time, McCovey slugged 521 home runs over the course of a career that spanned four decades. He will be best remembered as Willie Mays tag-team partner in San Francisco’s formidable lineups of the 1960s.

While Mays brought the theatrics, McCovey was the reliable straight man and the most feared left-handed hitter of his era. Listed at 6-foot-4, and wiry strong at 198 pounds, McCovey uncoiled a sweeping swing that blasted balls into orbit.

His famously long home runs inspired the water beyond the right-field field fence AT&T Park to be named in his honor — “McCovey Cove.”

“If you pitch to him, he’ll ruin a baseball,’’ rival manager Sparky Anderson once said. “There’s no comparison between McCovey and anybody else in the league.”

He was the National League rookie of the year in 1959, the league’s MVP in 1969 and the comeback player of the year in 1977 when he kicked off a late-career renaissance by returning to the Giants after a three-year absence.

In all, McCovey was a six-time All-Star whose career home run total ties him with Ted Williams for 18th on the all-time list. Before Barry Bonds passed him, McCovey had more home runs than any other left-handed hitter in N.L history.

McCovey’s total includes 18 grand slams, a figure topped by only three players. He was inducted into Cooperstown on his first ballot, in 1986.

“He used to scare me the most when I was playing first base,’’ Joe Torre once said. “I was just praying he wouldn’t hit one down the line. He was so strong, one of the most awesome players I’ve ever seen.”

McCovey was the only player to bet a baseball over the upper deck beyond the right-field fence at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. And, long before there was a “McCovey Cove’’ he hit balls into the community pool beyond the outfield fences in Jarry Park in Cincinnati.

McCovey’s power was so prodigious that New York Mets manager Casey Stengel, in a pre-game planning meeting for dealing with him, joked to his pitcher: “Where would you like me to position the right fielder – in the upper deck or the lower deck?”

One of McCovey’s most famous swings, however, resulted in a ball that never left the infield. With the potential winning runs on base, McCovey hit a searing liner that New York Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson snagged for the final out of Game 7 of the 1962 World Series. It haunted McCovey, and San Francisco fans, for years. No less an authority than Charlie Brown once screamed into the sky: “Why couldn’t McCovey have hit the ball just three feet higher?”

Primarily a first baseman, McCovey had the wingspan of a condor and when he reached in any direction in search of a throw. He became known as “Stretch.”

The native of Mobile, Ala., burst into the league on July 20, 1959 when he enjoyed a 4-for-4 debut against Phillies’ ace Robin Roberts, also a future Hall of Famer.

McCovey had spent the previous night packing into the wee hours after getting the late call-up to the big leagues.

“I requested uniform No. 44 because I’ve always admired Hank Aaron,’’ McCovey recalled in his Hall of Fame induction speech. “And I was getting dressed when (manager) Bill Rigney came to me and said, ‘How do you feel?’

“I said, ‘fine,’ not wanting to tell him I had been up all night. He said, ‘Good, because you’re in there and you’re hitting third. You now whose spot that is? I’m moving Mays up to second today, so you know what we’re expecting of you.’’’

McCovey responded with two triples, two singles, three runs and two RBI to lead a 7-2 victory. He would play just 52 games that ’59 season, but his immediate onslaught — .354 average, 13 home runs, 38 RBI — was enough to capture rookie of the year honors.

Despite those splashy early days, McCovey bounced around for the next few seasons as the Giants struggled to make room for both him and another young star, Orlando Cepeda. (The two were shuttled back and forth between first base and left field until the team cleared the logjam by trading Cepeda to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1966.)

McCovey led the N.L. in home runs three times, including in ’68-69 when he became just the fifth player in baseball history to capture back-to-back home run and RBI titles. He helped endear himself to Giants fans by tormenting Don Drysdale, a star pitcher for the rival Los Angeles Dodgers, with 12 career home runs. “He beat on me like a tom-tom,’’ Drysdale once said.

Because McCovey established his star while in San Francisco, his popularity often surpassed that of Mays, who was viewed as a New York import in his early days. Either way, the duo was a nightmare for opposing pitchers.

Mays and McCovey homered in the same game 68 times, a feat topped among teammates only by Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews (75 times) and Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth (73).

Nick Peters, the Hall of Fame baseball writer who chronicled McCovey’s career, once marveled that the first baseman “did it all despite arthritic knees, a troublesome hip, aching feet and assorted other ailments. He did it in the Candlestick Park cold and despite more intentional walks of any player of his era.”

McCovey overcame those hurdles to last 22 seasons in the big leagues. Though an icon with the Giants, he played briefly for the San Diego Padres (1973-76) and the A’s (nine games at the end of the ’76 season) before enjoying a prolonged swan song in San Francisco.

He hit 29 home runs in 1977, when he was 39 years old, and followed with two more seasons. He hit the end of the road in 1980, when he retired at midseason. He played his last game on July 10 in Los Angeles and delivered a sacrifice fly as a pinch hitter in the eighth inning to give the Giants a 4-3 lead.

A capacity crowd – at Dodger Stadium, no less – gave him a long standing ovation. “I’ve never seen an opposing player get an ovation like that here,’’ Giants coach Jim Lefebvre, a former Dodger, told Peters. “Baseball is going to miss him.”

Born to Frank and Esther McCovey on Jan. 10, 1938 in Mobile, Ala., Willie Lee McCovey was raised with seven brothers. It was the city’s playground director, Jesse Thomas, who arranged for Willie to get a try out in front of Giants scouts Alex Pompez and Jack Schwarz, who promptly signed him to a contract.

One of McCovey’s first minor league managers, Salty Parker, encouraged the kid to stay true to the quiet, dignified nature that would make him a fan favorite.

“He said, ‘You’re tall and because you’re tall you’ll always be respected and you’ll always stand out in a crowd,’’ McCovey recalled during his Cooperstown induction speech. “He said, ‘You are not a very outgoing person and you have an easy-going manner and people may interpret that as though you’re not caring.

“But whatever people say, stay the way you are … Don’t ever change or let somebody try to make you something you’re not.”

McCovey proved so revered that the Giants established the Willie Mac Award in 1980 to honor the player who “best exemplifies the spirit and leadership consistently shown by McCovey throughout his career.”Late in his life, McCovey was a fixture at AT&T Park, watching games from a private suite near the broadcasts booths. His official role was as a senior advisor, whose duties included offering his expertise to Giants players and making speaking appearances.

The Giants announced on Sept. 19 that McCovey had been hospitalized from complications stemming from an infection.